Sunrise Much Wanted
by Melaka-Fray
Summary: It's two years after "Chosen" and Dawn is in Cleveland acting as guardian to the Hellmouth there in a non-Slayer capacity, until she embarks on a journey to learn more about herself and her powers. New Chapter 5!
1. Aftermath and another Chosen One

Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Though, okay, wishing it was. Thanks to Joss & Co!  
  
May, 2005. Cleveland, Ohio. The Current Hellmouth.  
  
Dawn Summers sighed to herself, her green eyes rimmed with red from being up all night. It had been a long, long night, and the young woman was looking forward to crawling into her bed at the break of dawn.  
  
The past two years had been tough on the youngest Summers girl, and how could it not be? Xander had pretty much become a recluse after Anya died, and while he and Andrew had started a comic book store together, Xander had himself hid from the world. There was speculation among the old Scoobies, though, that Xander would soon come back to the fold...or at least out into the open.  
  
Andrew, who was running the shop, had also started his own comic book series, calling it "Legends of the Lyncher", which bore a striking resemblance to myth of the Slayers. The same went for many of the main characters' names, Dawn had noticed in issue one, with mild humor and skepticism. Muffy and Dysis Winters, for example, as well as Hope, Niles, and other names. It was a hot seller though, or so it seemed.  
  
Willow, who had now become Patron Goddess of the Sisterhood of Slayers (as many of the Slayers fancied themselves), lived an ethereal life. No one really knew where she was...but she made guest spots in peoples' lives quite frequently. There was speculation among many of the Slayers who had been with her in Sunnydale that the former witch had set up shop on Mt. Olympus, though to Dawn that idea sounded just plain hokey. Last Dawn had heard though, was that Willow was still trying to get in contact with Tara. No matter how much the redhead loved Kennedy...Tara would always be the Angel to Willow's Buffy, in terms of relationships.  
  
Giles had moved back to England to restart the Council of Watchers, with new rules and guidelines. He had felt that it ought to be done, and the new Council had started sending Watchers over to Slayers to help them in their worldwide fight against evil. It was the only thing that Giles knew to do, for he figured that if anyone had that much power and no knowledge of how to harness it, it would surely create much havoc in the world.  
  
Faith had finally calmed down, and she, along with Robin Wood, had set up a good life for themselves in Cleveland along with Dawn. They had acted as Dawn's guardians for the past two years while Buffy had traveled the world...trying to figure out what to do with herself now. She definitely wasn't big on the vampire slayage lately, though Dawn was.  
  
Dawn herself had finished off high school in Cleveland and, in the meantime, had also become Cleveland's official guardian. She was no Slayer, that she knew, but Cleveland had no Slayer except Faith, who had given reins over to Dawn since Dawn was the Final Guardian's little sister. Dawn had done a fine job of it too, thwarting two apocalypses already in the past two years.  
  
Now, though, things had changed for the young woman. She was on the brink of college, but she wanted more. She wanted to find some answers about herself, because she still had so many questions that needed to be answered. Then there were the dreams she was having. Dreams of something old, something great, something incredibly evil. Something that Dawn felt only she could thwart, though how, she did not know. After all, she wasn't a Slayer...and weren't they the most powerful of creatures on the planet? Then there were the voices as well. The ones that hinted at her powers, that she was a great source of power. They hinted that her Key-ness was still there, within her, that she had to find it.  
  
The dreams and voices intrigued the eighteen-year-old. She had to know more.  
  
So, the young woman had made up her mind. She would head to Los Angeles, and find some answers for herself. There were Oracles there, or so she had heard, along with a good demon named Whistler and, of course, Angel and company, who she was sure would help out Buffy's little sister. Besides, Andrew was there too, and she had heard rumors of Spike's existence too, that the peroxide-headed vampire still lived.  
  
Dawn knew she had to find some answers, and she knew that, at least at the moment, she'd have to go at them alone.  
  
She was, in a way, much like her sister had been at that moment.  
  
A Chosen One. 


	2. Dreams and Visions

Dawn schlumped into her home on 1183 Moonshine Hollow at daybreak, her legs tired and her hair a mess. She had slain two vampires that night, and had also found a nest of some gooey variety of demon that Dawn was sure her sister must have come across sometime.  
  
She was setting down her bag of slaying supplies when she heard a tiny moan come from the kitchen. The brunette made her way to the kitchen quietly, almost tripping over Wood's cat Kitten Phat, wondering what on Earth could be stalking her home at five am. Her questions were answered when she saw Faith lustily wrapped in Wood's arms, the two sucking face like teenagers.  
  
"Umm, okay, if you don't want to use your bedroom, go rent one," Dawn said, wrinkling her nose. Faith pulled apart from her lover and looked at Dawn, a sly smile coming across her face.  
  
"Good morning yourself, squirt. Don't you have someplace to be?"  
  
"Yeah, my bed. Also, squirt? So not my name. It's Dawn. Use it, k?" Dawn asked, as she gave her friend and guardian a half-smile. "I should though, get going...but I need to talk to you later. Both of you."  
  
"Sure," Wood agreed, his brown eyes warm with kindness towards the girl he and Faith had so faithfully watched over for Buffy during the past twenty- four months. "You go on to sleep now though."  
  
"Yeah...so you guys can have a break-boinkfast. I mean, of you haven't- umm, suddenly, I don't wanna know," the eighteen-year-old said, picking up her duffel bag and heading for the back stairs of the house.  
  
Dawn was still getting used to the new home, and how could anyone blame her? She had been living in the house in Sunnydale for seven years. Well, okay, technically two years, but she had memories that said seven years, which counted for a lot.  
  
Dawn stepped into her room and closed the oak door behind her softly. She stepped out of her khakis and her denim jacket and fitted shirt, slipping into a comfy oversized tee-shirt with She-Ra emblazoned across the front. She scrubbed her face and washed her teeth in her bathroom, and grabbing a stuffed pig that she had bought for Buffy to remind her of Mr. Gordo (Buffy kept it in Dawn's care while she traveled the world), slipped under her mint green covers and into a deep, albeit restless, sleep.  
  
Images came unbidden into Dawn's mind. Images of Dawn at the dawn of time, shimmering green, full of energy and power. She was nothing, yet she was so much more. She had power, natural primal magicks that not even the gods could recreate.  
  
The images changed and shifted, turning into images more recent. The monks taking her out of her box and giving her human form. Implanting her in the Summers' household with memories, a name, a birth certificate. Her blood and flesh were real, but forged through magick, not real life. She was not really born...but she was borne. Glory's face shot through her mind, her beautiful but evil grin, her glee as Dawn started opening the portal to bring home to Glory.  
  
Dawn saw Buffy's death, her resurrection, and Dawn's acceptance by the Scoobies. Then came the images of evil Willow, and then, the First. The supposed evil of all evils, the motherboard of all badness, the Biggest Bad of all the Big Bads that the Scooby Gang had ever faced.  
  
Color then clouded her dreams. Her feelings for Xander, her first love, possibly her only love, though his loyalties had always lied between Anya and Buffy. Her small crush on Andrew, who, she had figured out, also carried a slight torch for the late vengeance demon. And Spike, who she had never loved, but who had always been there for her as sort of shield from anything evil. And finally, Giles, the man who had played the father figure in her life for so long.  
  
But these were all only images from her past.  
  
Things from the future came into fruition. People, new faces, new adventures, new evils. She saw images of three dark skinned men, though this was the only old image she saw, the Shadow men that Buffy had told her about, the first Watchers, who had made the Primal Slayer by forging a demon with a girl. She saw the Shadow men try to forge something else, something failed, something evil and sinister. What it was, Dawn couldn't tell. But it was big.  
  
Other images shimmered and faded in the recesses of Dawn's dream. She saw a young man, about twenty-ish, handsome, strong, with a wild, dark streak. There was something inside of him, memories suppressed, memories that he did not know about, but memories that he had lived. Dawn felt something for him, something tugging her towards him. There was some sort of familiarity that she felt towards him, like a part of her knew him somehow.  
  
She then saw something else. Something infused with magick, made of magick, something with magick in every grain and fiber of it's very being. She could feel the magick, even though she couldn't make out what it was exactly, but whatever it was...it was freakishly powerful...almost too powerful. Was it another Key? Or was it something else? Dawn, in her dream- body, tried to walk closer to it, but she never reached close enough.  
  
Instead, Dawn woke up.  
  
*** 


	3. The Journey Begins

"Mmmph." Dawn grumbled as she sat down in the breakfast nook at eleven am. She was freshly showered and scrubbed, but she felt tired beyond what any words could express. But, then again, battling the forces of evil all night? Not much for making with the happy, cheery mornings.  
  
"What's wrong, squirt?" Faith asked, coming in from the backyard. She carried a pair of swords in her hands - one long and curved, the other short and straight - and was dressed in tight blue jeans and a black sweatshirt. The Slayer's cheeks were slightly red, from the workout she had been doing, and her brunette waves were in disarray.  
  
"Tired," Dawn half-mumbled. "Where's the coffee?"  
  
"We're all out, but there's cherry cola in the fridge, with extra caffeine."  
  
"Cherry cola. Well...cherry is technically a fruit, and it's not like it's breakfast time anymore anyway. Besides, I need the caffeine surge."  
  
"Knock yourself out, D," Faith replied. "By the way," she added, perching herself onto the kitchen counter, "What did you wanna talk to me and Robin about anyway? Everything five by five?"  
  
Dawn, popping open a can of cola, shook her head, wet waves sending off droplets of water. "Not exactly, Faith, and that's the problem. I've been getting dreams lately."  
  
"Prophetic ones?"  
  
"One and the same."  
  
"That's never good. Sounds like Giles territory to me as well. Or, at least Wesley."  
  
"Exactly," Dawn nodded, "Wesley. I think I should go over to LA and -"  
  
"Whoa, hold it Dawnie. You, go to LA on your own? I dunno if that's such a great thought. What kind of dreams have they been?"  
  
"Something about a mysterious guy in his twenties...I think I am connected to him somehow. He's like another Key or something Faith - or not. I'm not really sure, but I need to find out. And besides, they say that Spike has been seen down there, still living, and I owe it to Buffy to find him. There have been other things in the dreams too, Faith, cryptic things. I-I just need to figure out what it all means."  
  
"On your own? Dawn, for all you know, demons could be sending you those dreams."  
  
"And I can't live in fear of that, Faith. Come on, you're the Slayer...or a Slayer. God that still confuses me. Anyway, not the point. The point is, I need to know for sure. I need to know what's going on and how I'm supposed to put a stop to it. There's some ancient prophecy in this somewhere...and I'm gonna have to do something about it."  
  
Faith looked down at her charge, seeing some of Buffy in the eighteen-year- old. Actually, a lot of Buffy. Faith was pleased to see that in Dawn. Dawn must have sensed what Faith was thinking because she said, "Don't say it Faith. I don't wanna hear that. It gets you all weepy."  
  
"All right, not saying it," Faith agreed, getting off the counter. "So, what, you wanna go to LA?"  
  
"Pretty much."  
  
"You aren't going to stop by the crater formerly known as Sunnydale, are you?"  
  
"Only if I need to. Come on, Faith...lemme do this."  
  
"Shouldn't we talk to Robin about this? I mean, this is his home."  
  
"And Buffy put me in your care, Faith, not his. I turn to him when I need to talk, yeah, but the final decision, pretty much yours. Besides, I'm eighteen, an adult by most standards. I don't need your permission, I'm doing it out of respect for you."  
  
"Got a point there. All right, you can go," Faith agreed, hoping she wasn't making this decision too quickly or too brashly. But then again, Faith had been barely seventeen when she herself had left South Boston for Sunnydale. And Dawn was a whole lot more mature than Faith had been at her age.  
  
"Seriously?"  
  
"Yeah, seriously. But I'm gonna need you to keep in touch at all times. You have a cell phone. I want to know what's going on and if you need back-up."  
  
"I'll have Angel and group backing me Faith, I know I will. But thanks." Dawn smiled as she gulped down the last of the cherry cola. "I know you're there for me."  
  
"Always. Now start getting ready. How soon do you wanna leave?"  
  
"Asap." Dawn said, saying the letters as a whole word instead of as an abbreviation.  
  
"Let's see what we can do then."  
  
Dawn smiled. "Excellent." She crushed her can and threw it away, ready to start her journey.  
  
Ready to find out whatever she could about herself, her powers, and her dreams and visions.  
  
Ready for anything that life threw her way.  
  
Or so she thought.  
  
***  
  
Hey guys! Just wanted to say thanks for the reviews and stuff and please keep reading and reviewing! As a disclaimer, I'd like to say that this story was not only my idea, but my good friend Matt is TOTALLY helping me out with a bunch of kinks and stuff...and I shoulda acknowledged him earlier...but here I am now so...major snaps to him, and happy reading!!!  
  
*~*Amit*~* 


	4. Train Ride

On the train to Los Angeles  
  
Dawn quietly stared at her cinnamon raisin bagel, idly wondering if the bagel came before the donut or vice-versa. Was the bagel made when someone tried to make a donut? Did the opposite happen? Or were they two different creations? Or did one inspire the other? Dawn set the bagel down on her plate as she sat alone at a tiny table in the dining area of the Amtrak train that was to take her to Los Angeles, not wanting to sprain her brain with philosophical thoughts of that intensity.  
  
Normally, Dawn would have sprung for a plane, except that two years ago, when she, Faith, and the rest had left Sunnydale for Cleveland, some intense spirit had tried to attack their plane and kill them, saying it was the First reborn. Willow, with all her godly powers, had knocked the designer imposter to hell, literally, and had later uncovered that it was nothing more than a minor hellgod trying to take revenge for what the Scoobies had done to the Hellmouth and for upsetting the balance of good and evil once again, giving good four upper hands.  
  
Dawn didn't want any recurrences of the same, so she figured that a train would be better. After all, train crashes were rarer than plane crashes. Granted, due to the dreams, she didn't think she'd die anyway, but it was better to be careful. Fate was tricky. And, speaking of death, would she go back to being a big old ball of energy or would she open all the mouths of Hell when she died? Or would it be a normal, human-like death?  
  
Dawn pushed those thoughts away from her mind as well coz, okay, death, scary. To keep herself busy, Dawn scarfed down her bagel after slathering it with crunchy peanut butter, and then stood up unsteadily to go back to her seat.  
  
As she walked back to her seat, she flashed a smile to an East Indian girl who was sitting - half-bored, it seemed - with someone who Dawn could only guess was her grandmother. The girl had seemed pleasant to Dawn throughout the trip so far, and had steadily been giving Dawn sweet smiles. She was a beautiful looking young woman, with dusky skin and smoky eyes and luscious curls. The girl smiled back pleasantly, and a little wistfully, it seemed, because perhaps she wanted to be in Dawn's shoes.  
  
Dawn, passing her, gazed down at her own shoes - a nice, trendy pair of boots - and thought that while it was nice to be in her physical, material shoes, the spiritual shoes might not be so nice. After all, her life wasn't normal. She figured that she herself wasn't so normal either. After all, as people so often reminded her, she wasn't technically born, and, though humanly was older than anyone she knew, the core being that made up Dawn Summers was far older than her oldest ancestor. Something about that knowledge made her feel a little weirded out.  
  
The young woman plopped herself back into her seat, crossing her legs and pulling out the latest issue of Seventeen magazine. Not the best reading, granted, but she needed it coz, okay, she was going back home, and frankly, while Cleveland had a nice sense of style, Los Angeles was something else all together. And besides, if Cordelia was still there, Dawn wanted to make sure she showed her up. It was a little petty of her, sure, but Cordy had always been such a bitch to Dawn when they were younger. Only, none of it had actually ever happened.  
  
Dawn sighed and set the magazine. For sometime she had become alright with the fact that her childhood had never really even existed, but lately, after the dreams and all, her non-existent childhood had been plaguing her. Hence, again, with the trip.  
  
She started to pull the covers up when she suddenly heard a shriek from the compartment behind her, along with the sound of the brakes being pulled as the train lurched to a stop. Dawn jumped up from her seat, throwing her blanket off and checking to make sure she had a few stakes and vials of holy water on her. If there was a vampire, it needed killing, and she doubted that there would be a Slayer on board to aid her.  
  
She raced to the end of her compartment, out the door, and into the next one - which was the dining area - and went into action, seeing a vampire right in front of her. She guessed they could move around coz of the tinted windows - only direct sunlight could kill a vampire - and swore to herself. She launched a kick at the vamp's head and it connected with a solid crunch, sending the vampire flat on it's face. Dawn came down on it, slamming her elbow into its neck, and she heard a satisfying crack as soon as she made the connection.  
  
The vampire, taken by surprise, couldn't do much in that state and had no choice but to let Dawn slam her stake home.  
  
Dawn straightened herself up, and was dusting vamp dust - why, for once, could she not be showered with pixie dust? - when she heard a frenzied "Hey! Watch out!" Dawn whirled around and came face to face with, well, two vampires and some demonoid that she had never seen before.  
  
"What," Dawn asked, "Cleveland's demonic subway closed down? You'd think that they'd have a back-up, being the Hellmouth and all. No matter. What do you want?"  
  
"She's cheeky," a vampire snarled - one dressed like a waitress from a really cheap roadside diner - her feral yellow eyes flashing.  
  
"Well, I prefer feisty, but really, if cheeky's your word of the day..." Dawn shrugged, and then viciously head butted the vamp. "Have it your way." With that, the young woman launched a series of attacks against both vampires first, while the demon faded into the background. Dawn ignored him for the time being, her fists cracking against both vamp's faces, legs kicking, torso turning, eyes flaring and adrenaline pumping like - well, like something. Dawn would never have superstrength or superspeed - that's what the sisterhood of Slayers possessed - but she had wits and smarts, and she was the sister of the founding member of the Slayer sisterhood, so gosh darn it, she was a force to be reckoned with.  
  
Or at least that's what she thought right after both vamps were dust. She started to wonder why they were even on the train when she heard another shout behind her and whirled around (she made a mental note never to turn too much on a train ever again) to see the East Indian girl stop the demon from bringing a colossal, pinkish-orange down towards Dawn. The girl had power, as Dawn could see, and she fleetingly wondered if the girl was a Slayer before she joined the girl in kicking demon ass.  
  
The two girls, virtual strangers bound only by friendly smiles, cornered the demon, and Dawn held it against the wall, her hand firm on it's larynx as she asked, "Again, I ask, what the hell do you want?"  
  
The demon just snarled at her, as if it had decided not to answer.  
  
"Look, if you wanna play twenty questions, let's play. This train isn't even halfway to where I'm going yet, and frankly, I have time to kill. And possibly you too, if you don't speak something that resembles English."  
  
"Perhaps I should try?" asked the other girl, to which Dawn shook her head.  
  
"'S alright. I've been in the mood for a good ass kicking anyway. So, you wanna talk? And please, don't say 'From beneath you, it devours' coz that shtick's already been done. Well?"  
  
"Fleeing," the demon gasped, his voice squeaky in a cartoon-mouse meets cartoon-duck sort of way. Both girls were taken aback by that as they had expected something harsher, more gravelly and, well, demonic. "Fleeing to him. The Protector. He who will lead us to glory."  
  
"Okay, see, Glory? Dead. So, you already have a problem."  
  
"I think he meant glory in another way, if you mean Glorificus," the Indian girl timidly answered. Dawn gave her a look of surprise and again wondered who this girl was. She let that train of thought go and went back to her regularly scheduled interrogation.  
  
"Who's this Protector?"  
  
"He of old. Pure, yet impure. The original, but the mistake. No one will know him, no one can fight him. No one can -"  
  
"Please," Dawn interjected, already bored, "even the First Evil could be killed, and that was non-corporeal. Is that all you have to tell me?"  
  
"Either way I die."  
  
"Better me then," Dawn replied, pulling a curved blade out of a sheath inside her jeans. She slid the neck of the demon, and sent it sliding to the floor. Then she slammed her stake into its chest for good measure. That done, she turned to the girl and asked, "So, who are you?"  
  
The girl smiled confidently this time, as sweet as her other smiles, but more powerful, and said with strength in her voice, "I'm Paulomi, but please, call me Paul."  
  
***  
  
Hey guys! Sorry for the long time in updating. Was having major comp issues...gotta look into getting a new one or something. Anyways, hope u guys liked this one, and there should be more updates soon, hopefully on my other fics as well. Thanks a lot guys!  
  
*~*Amit*~* 


End file.
